Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Abridged

by Emma Laybourn

  ’Tis scarce credible that a man as wise as my father, could be so much incommoded with so small a matter. The word coach, or coach-man, or coach-horse, could never be named, without him complaining of carrying this vile mark of illegitimacy upon his own coach; he was never able to step in or out of it, without turning round to view the arms, and vowing that it was the last time he would ever set his foot in it, till the bend-sinister was removed. But like the hinge, it was destined ever to be grumbled at, and never to be mended.

  ‘Has the bend-sinister been brushed out?’ said my father.

  ‘No, Sir,’ answered Obadiah.

  ‘We’ll go on horseback,’ said my father, turning to Yorick.

  ‘The clergy know nothing of heraldry,’ said Yorick.

  ‘No matter,’ cried my father.

  ‘Never mind the bend-sinister,’ said my uncle Toby, putting on his tie-wig.

  ‘No, indeed,’ said my father. ‘You may go with my aunt Dinah on a visit with a bend-sinister, if you think fit.’

  My poor uncle blushed. My father was vexed at himself.

  ‘No – my dear brother,’ he said, changing his tone, ‘but the damp of the coach may give me the sciatica again, – so if you please, you shall ride my wife’s horse – and as you are to preach, Yorick, you had better make your way before us – and we shall follow at our own rates.’

  Now the chapter I was obliged to tear out, was the description of this cavalcade, in which Corporal Trim and Obadiah, upon two coach-horses, slowly led the way – whilst my uncle Toby, in his laced regimentals and tie-wig, rode alongside my father.

  But the painting of this journey is so much above the style of anything else I have painted in this book, that it could not have remained here without depreciating every other scene; and destroying that necessary balance betwixt chapters, from which the harmony of the whole work results. I am only just set up in the business, so know little about it – but, in my opinion, to write a book is like humming a song – stay in tune with yourself, madam, no matter how high or how low you take it.

  ‘I’m to preach at court next Sunday,’ said Homenas; ‘run over my notes.’ So I hummed over his notes – and a tolerable tune I thought it, never noticing how low, flat, and spiritless it was, until all of a sudden, up started a melody in the middle of it, so fine, so rich, so heavenly – it carried my soul up into the other world. ‘Your notes, Homenas,’ I should have said, ‘are good notes; – but it was so perpendicular a precipice – so cut off from the rest of the work, that I found myself flying into the other world, and discovered that the vale from which I had come was so deep and dismal, that I shall never have the heart to descend into it again.’

  – And so much for tearing out of chapters.

  CHAPTER 26

  ‘See if he is not cutting it into slips, and handing them around to light their pipes!’

  ‘’Tis abominable,’ answered Didius.

  ‘It should not go unnoticed,’ said doctor Kysarcius.

  ‘Methinks,’ said Didius, half rising from his chair, to remove a bottle which stood betwixt him and Yorick – ‘you might have spared this sarcastic stroke, and have hit upon a more proper place, Mr. Yorick, to have shown your contempt of us. If the sermon is of no better worth than to light pipes with – ’twas certainly, Sir, not good enough to be preached before so learned an assembly; and if ’twas good enough to be preached before us, ’twas certainly too good to light pipes with afterwards.’

  Didius thought, ‘I have got him hung upon the horns of my dilemma – let him get off as he can.’

  ‘I have undergone such unspeakable torments, in bringing forth this sermon,’ quoth Yorick, ‘that I declare, Didius, I would suffer martyrdom before I would sit down and make such another. It came from my head instead of my heart – and it is for the pain it gave me, that I revenge myself on it in this manner. To preach – to parade before vulgar eyes our beggarly learning, tinselled over with a few words which glitter, but convey little light and less warmth – ’tis not preaching the gospel – but ourselves. For my own part,’ continued he, ‘I had rather direct five words point-blank to the heart.’

  As Yorick pronounced the word point-blank, my uncle Toby rose up to say something upon projectiles – when a single word uttered from the opposite side of the table drew everyone’s ears – a word of all others in the dictionary the last to be expected – a word I am ashamed to write – yet must be written – guess ten thousand guesses, you’ll never get there–

  In short, I’ll tell it in the next chapter.

  CHAPTER 27

  ‘Zounds! --------- --------- ------------ -------- ---------- ------------ --------- Z-----ds!’ cried Phutatorius, partly to himself, yet high enough to be heard, in a tone between amazement and bodily pain.

  One or two could distinguish the mixture of the two tones as plainly as a fifth chord in music – but they could not tell what in the world to make of it.

  Others imagined that Phutatorius, who was short-tempered, was about to take the cudgels from Didius and attack Yorick – and that the desperate monosyllable Z------ds was the introduction to a forceful speech. But seeing Phutatorius stop short, they then supposed that it was no more than an involuntary breath, casually forming itself into an oath – without the sin of one.

  Those who sat next to him looked upon it, on the contrary, as a real oath against Yorick, whom he was known to not like – this oath being squeezed out by the surprise which so strange a theory of preaching had given him.

  How finely we argue upon mistaken facts!

  Everybody there assumed that Phutatorius’s mind was intent upon the debate between Didius and Yorick; and indeed he looked first towards the one and then the other, with the air of a man listening.

  But the truth was, that Phutatorius knew not one word of what was passing – his thoughts were taken up with something which was happening at that very instant within his own breeches, and in a part of them where he was most interested. So although he looked with all the attention in the world, and had screwed up every muscle in his face, – yet the true cause of his exclamation lay a yard below.

  This I will try to explain with decency.

  Gastripheres, who had wandered into the kitchen before dinner, to see how things went on – observing a wicker-basket of fine chestnuts standing upon the dresser, had ordered that a hundred of them might be roasted and sent in after dinner, because Didius, and Phutatorius especially, were fond of ’em.

  The chestnuts were brought in – and as Phutatorius’s fondness for ’em was uppermost in the waiter’s head, he laid them directly before Phutatorius, wrapped up hot in a clean damask napkin.

  Now, one chestnut, of more life and rotundity than the rest, must have been put in motion – it was sent rolling off the table; and as Phutatorius sat straddled under – it fell straight into that particular opening of Phutatorius’s breeches, for which there is no chaste word in Johnson’s dictionary. Let it suffice to say – it was that opening which, in all good societies, the laws of decorum strictly require to be shut up.

  Phutatorius’s neglect of this rule had opened a door to this accident.

  – Accident I call it; but Acrites and Mythogeras were both sure that there was no accident in it – but that the hot chestnut’s falling directly into that particular place was a judgment upon Phutatorius, for his filthy treatise de Concubinis retinendis, which he had published about twenty years earlier, and was that week going to give the world a second edition of.

  It is not my business to dip my pen in this controversy – all that concerns me is the fact that the gap in Phutatorius’s breeches was wide enough to receive the chestnut; which somehow or other fell piping hot into it, without anyone noticing.

  The genial warmth of the chestnut was not unpleasant for the first twenty seconds or so – and did no more than gently call Phutatorius’s attention to the part.

  But the heat increasing speedily into the regions of pain, the soul of Phutatorius, together with hi
s thoughts, attention and judgment, all tumultuously crowded down to the place of danger, leaving his upper regions as empty as my purse.

  Phutatorius had no idea of what was going on below, nor could he make any guess what the devil was the matter. However, he deemed it most prudent, in the situation he was in, to bear it, if possible, like a Stoic; which, with the help of some wry faces, he had certainly accomplished.

  But then the thought darted into his mind, that though the anguish felt like heat, it might just as likely be a bite as a burn; and that possibly some detested reptile had crept up, and was fastening its teeth in him – a horrid idea which seized Phutatorius with a sudden panic, and threw him quite off his guard.

  The effect was that he leapt up, uttering that Z------ds – which was the least any man could have said upon the occasion.

  Drawing forth the chestnut, he threw it down violently upon the floor – and Yorick picked it up.

  It is curious to observe the triumph of slight incidents over the mind: – what incredible weight they have in forming our opinions, – so that trifles, light as air, waft a belief into the soul, and plant it immoveably within.

  Yorick, as I said, picked up the chestnut – the action was trifling – he did it, for no reason, but that a good chestnut was worth stooping for.

  But this incident, trifling as it was, worked differently in Phutatorius’s head. He considered Yorick’s act as a plain acknowledgment that the chestnut was originally his – and that it must have been Yorick who had played him a prank. The table being very narrow, it gave Yorick, who sat opposite him, the opportunity of slipping the chestnut in – and consequently Phutatorius assumed he did it.

  The look of suspicion which Phutatorius gave Yorick spoke his opinion – and as Phutatorius was naturally supposed to know more of the matter than any other person, his opinion at once became the general one.

  And naturally, men looked for the cause of this. – The search was not long.

  It was well known that Yorick had never a good opinion of Phutatorius’s treatise, de Concubinis retinendis – and ’twas decided that there was a mystical meaning in Yorick’s prank, and that his chucking the hot chestnut into Phutatorius’s breeches was a sarcastical fling at his book – the doctrines of which had enflamed many an honest man in the same place.

  This idea was thought by many to be a master-stroke of arch-wit.

  This, as the reader has seen, was groundless: though Yorick was ‘a man of jest,’ his nature withheld him from that, and many other pranks, of which he undeservedly bore the blame. It was his misfortune all his life to bear the blame of a thousand things, of which he was incapable. All I blame him for – and also like him for – was that he would never set a story right with the world, even if he could. In every ill usage of that sort, he acted precisely as in the affair of his lean horse – he could have explained it to his honour, but he would not stoop to tell his story to those who believed ungenerous reports. He trusted to time and truth to do it for him.

  This heroic cast of mind often inconvenienced him; here it was followed by the fixed resentment of Phutatorius, who rose up from his chair with a smile; saying that he would not forget the obligation.

  – The smile was for the company.

  – The threat was for Yorick.

  CHAPTER 28

  ‘Can you tell me,’ quoth Phutatorius, ‘–what is best to take out the heat?’

  ‘That greatly depends,’ said Eugenius, pretending ignorance of the adventure, ‘upon the nature of the part. If it is a tender part, which can easily be wrapped up–’

  ‘It is,’ replied Phutatorius, lifting up his right leg to ventilate it.

  ‘In that case,’ said Eugenius, ‘I would advise you not to tamper with it; but send to the printer, and trust your cure to a soft sheet of paper just come off the press – simply twist it round.’

  ‘Although the damp paper has a refreshing coolness,’ quoth Yorick, ‘yet I presume it is the oil and lamp-black with which the paper is impregnated, which does the business.’

  ‘Right,’ said Eugenius, ‘and it is a remedy both anodyne and safe.’

  ‘As the main thing is the oil and lamp-black,’ said Gastripheres, ‘I should spread them thick upon a rag, and clap it on directly.’

  ‘That would not answer,’ said Eugenius, ‘for the neatness and elegance of the prescription is what matters. For if the type is a very small one, the useful particles have the advantage of being spread so infinitely thin, and with such a mathematical equality (large capitals excepted) as no management of the spatula can come up to.’

  ‘It is very lucky,’ replied Phutatorius, ‘that the second edition of my treatise is at this instant in the press.’

  ‘You may use any page of it,’ said Eugenius.

  ‘Provided,’ quoth Yorick, ‘there is no bawdry in it.’

  ‘They are just now printing the ninth chapter,’ replied Phutatorius.

  ‘Pray what is that chapter’s title?’ said Yorick, bowing respectfully.

  ‘De re concubinaria – On the Matter of Concubines.’

  ‘For Heaven’s sake keep out of that chapter,’ quoth Yorick.

  CHAPTER 29

  ‘Now,’ quoth Didius, rising up, ‘if such a blunder about a Christian name had happened before the Reformation, when baptism was administered in Latin, – many things might have occurred which would allow an authority to pronounce the baptism null, with a power of giving the child a new name. Had a priest, for instance, through ignorance of the Latin tongue, baptized a child in nomine patriae et filia et spiritum sanctos – the baptism was held null.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ replied Kysarcius, ‘in that case, as the mistake was only the word-endings, the baptism was valid. To have rendered it null, the priest should have blundered on the first syllable of each noun, and not the last.’

  My father delighted in subtleties of this kind, and listened with great attention.

  ‘If Gastripheres, for example,’ continued Kysarcius, ‘baptizes a child of John Stradling’s in gomine gatris, instead of in nomine patris – is this a baptism? No: for the root of each word is torn up, and it becomes meaningless; therefore, it is null.’

  ‘Of course,’ answered Yorick, in a tone part jest and part earnest.

  ‘But in the case cited,’ continued Kysarcius, ‘with patriae for patris, and so on – as it is a fault only in the declension, and the roots of the words and their meaning continue untouched, it does not hinder the baptism. We have an instance in a decree of Pope Leo the Third–’

  ‘But my brother’s child has nothing to do with the Pope,’ cried my uncle Toby; ‘’tis the child of a Protestant gentleman, christened Tristram against the wishes of his father and mother, and all his kin.’

  ‘If the wishes of only Mr. Shandy’s family were to have weight in this matter,’ said Kysarcius, ‘Mrs. Shandy, of all people, has the least.’

  My uncle Toby laid down his pipe, and my father drew his chair closer to the table, to hear more.

  ‘It has been a question, Captain Shandy, amongst the best lawyers in this land,’ continued Kysarcius, ‘“whether the mother be of kin to her child;” but, after much enquiry into all the arguments – it has been judged for the negative: namely, “That the mother is not of kin to her child.”’

  My father instantly clapped his hand upon my uncle Toby’s mouth, under the pretence of whispering in his ear; the truth was, he was alarmed for Lillabullero, for he had a great desire to hear more of so curious an argument. My uncle Toby resumed his pipe, and contenting himself with whistling Lillabullero inwardly.

  ‘This decision,’ continued Kysarcius, ‘however contrary it may seem to run to vulgar ideas, yet had reason strongly on its side; and has been put beyond dispute by the famous case of the Duke of Suffolk. The case, Mr. Shandy, was this.

  ‘In the reign of Edward the Sixth, Charles duke of Suffolk, having a son by one mother, and a daughter by another, made his last will, wherein he left his goods to his so
n, and died. After his death the son died also – but without a will, without wife or child. Since his mother and his sister by the father’s side were then living, the mother took the administration of her son’s goods, according to the 21st statute of Harry the Eighth, whereby if any person should die intestate the administration of his goods shall be committed to the next of kin.

  ‘The administration being thus granted to the mother, the sister began a suit before the Ecclesiastical Judge, alleging, first, that she herself was next of kin; and second, that the mother was not of kin at all to the deceased son; and therefore she prayed the court that the administration of the estate might be revoked from the mother and given to her.

  ‘As it was a great cause, with much depending upon its result, the most learned lawyers were consulted as to whether the mother was of kin to her son, or no. All the lawyers and judges were unanimously of the opinion, that the mother was not of kin to her child.’

  ‘And what said the duchess of Suffolk to it?’ said my uncle Toby.

  The unexpectedness of my uncle’s question confounded Kysarcius. He paused, and Triptolemus took over.

  ‘’Tis a principle in the law,’ said Triptolemus, ‘that things do not ascend, but descend in it; so that however true it is, that the child is of the blood and seed of its parents – the parents, nevertheless, are not of the blood and seed of the child; for they are not begot by the child.’

  ‘But Triptolemus,’ cried Didius, ‘from this it would follow, not only that the mother is not of kin to her child – but the father likewise.’

  ‘It is held,’ said Triptolemus, ‘that the father, the mother, and the child, though they be three persons, yet are they but one flesh; and consequently no degree of kindred.’